The invention relates to a tag.
Tags have long been attached to items to identify their prices. Today, however, more information than just the price of a product, or even instead of the price, is frequently desired on the tag. For example, product quality, content, care or inventory control code, such as a bar code for point-of-sale inventory and accounting control, may be desired. As used herein, tag denotes a tag for receiving in any way, hereinafter called printing, any information to be attached to an article for any reason. One example is a baggage destination and/or identification tag used by airlines for checked baggage.
One known type of tag is an adhesive label, i.e. a piece of paper or similar material, printed with the price or other information on one side, and coated with an adhesive on the opposite side. The adhesive is used for adhering the tag to a product. This type of tag has wide acceptance, but the amount of information that can be printed on the tag is limited by the size (i.e. area) of the one printable side of the tag. Examples of this type of tag are the manufacturers' labels on food jars, or the self-adhesive price tags used in supermarkets.
Another known type of tag is a hang tag such as is usually found attached to clothing when offered for sale by retailers. This type of tag can have printed information on both sides. It can be applied to an article by a string affixed to it, or, in the case of clothing, by a plastic loop or hooking device which passes through both the tag and the clothing. This type of tag is used where it is impractical or undesirable (e.g. clothing or jewelry) to use adhesive to affix the tag to the relevant merchandise. It is also used for its ability to contain printed information on both sides, which is an advantage over an adhesive label of similar size. A hang tag may be made by printing heavy paper or card stock on both sides; it may also be made by starting with a piece of material twice as large as the finished tag, printing all information on just one side of the material, and then folding it in half so the unprinted side meets itself and the printed side is exposed top and bottom. The two unprinted surfaces may be adhered together at this point, and a string loop may be inserted between them prior to their being joined in order for the loop to be permanently affixed to the tag. The printing may also occur separately on both sides after the string loop is attached.
A variant (ring tag) of the hang tag has all the printed information on one side of the tag material, and pressure sensitive adhesive on part or all of the other side. The unassembled tag is passed either through the merchandise (e.g. a ring or belt buckle) or around a narrow part of it (e.g. a clip on a pen). It is then folded back on itself so that it is held closed by the adhesive which is now hidden, and both visible sides of the assembled tag contain printed information.
By virtue of its two available surfaces, a given finished size hang tag contains twice the imprintable area as an adhesive label of the same size. However, this construction still has two drawbacks which are most acute in the case of jewelry tags, but which still apply in other areas as well. First, even the two imprintable sides of the finished tag may not legibly accommodate all the necessary information without undesirably increasing the size of the tag. Second, all the information printed on the tag is always conspicuously visible on one side of the tag or the other. Price tags for jewelry illustrate these drawbacks well.
Regarding the first problem, it is often desired to keep jewelry price tags small to avoid overwhelming the usually small product with the size of the tag. It is often also desired, however, to have considerable information on a jewelry price tag. For example, the retailer's name, the price, the manufacturer's name and item number, the quality (e.g. 14 karat gold), precious stone content (e.g. 1.24 carat diamonds), gemstone treatment (e.g. irradiated for color enhancement), country of origin, and retailer's inventory or stock number may all be desired on the price tag or may even be required by government regulations. In addition, modern merchandising techniques may involve the placement of a bar code on each item to facilitate the rapid and accurate physical inventory counting, and pricing and recording at the time of sale. Thus there is a need to place more information on a small tag than will physically fit on it.
Regarding the second problem, it is often desired to limit the information visible on a jewelry price tag to that information which is necessary and desirable for the customer to see prior to purchase. Information such as store stock number, manufacturer's name and stock number, date of purchase by the store, and a bar code used at the time of sale need not be visible to the customer during the process of selecting merchandise. In fact, the visibility of some of these items by the customer may detract from the appeal and quality image that is desire for the merchandise itself. This may be especially true of bar codes which are used at the point of sale (cash register), and which are still associated by some with grocery-like commodities. It would be desirable, therefore, to temporarily cover some information on a jewelry tag until such time as the information is needed.